I am grateful for having had a productive day. Off and on over the past several weeks, weekends had become lower energy days when I didn’t manage to get a whole lot accomplished. Today, beginning with a helpful morning meditation followed by breakfast with my friend Mary, I managed to keep myself moving through the afternoon and evening to work toward a major objective: removing the remaining boxes from the section of my living room where I plan to set up a Christmas tree. On one level, this probably doesn’t sound like a significant accomplishment; however, we first moved into the condo on May 1, and for the seven months since then, the north wall of the living room has been inhabited by dozens of boxes stacked nearly to the ceiling. While there are still about 8 to 10 boxes remaining there, that’s down from the 40 or so that were there two weeks ago. This is cause for celebration.
When we moved here back in May, I was probably still somewhat in disbelief that I was moving from the lovely three-bedroom house that I had called home for six years. Moving represented more than leaving the house, it completed the ending of a seven-year relationship with my partner. And while Jared and I were lucky to find the condo and though it’s a nice enough place, I didn’t really want to be here. So, the boxes remained as a testament to my denial and lack of motivation to do anything about them. Plus, at various points my job search had me traveling out of state looking at potential jobs, which made settling into the condo and moving the remaining boxes into my storage unit seem like a waste of time. I mean, why bother moving them into storage when I’d just have to move them back out when I took an out-of-state job. Except the out of state job didn’t materialize. So for the past week it’s been out with the boxes–except for the three boxes of Christmas stuff that I brought from the storage unit.
So today’s gratitude is for a really simple thing–a sense of accomplishment and for taking steps toward making the condo a little bit homier. Like so much of my life at the moment, it is still a work in progress with plenty left to do, but I’m still doing a little happy dance about it. My goal now is to finish clearing the remaining boxes and scattered “stuff” out the living room by Friday then take both kids get a tree on Saturday. For a brief period of time I had thought about not getting a tree (in part because it would require clearing out the boxes); but then I realized that I have not had single year in my life when I didn’t have one. This did not seem like the year to break that string. It feels important to me and for my kids to have one, in celebration of the holidays and in hope for a good start to 2012.
Today I rolled up my sleeves and worked–good, physical, hard work–and was able to see the fruit of my efforts. Tomorrow and for the next few days I am turning my attention to job search as I prepare for an interview that takes place on Wednesday. Then, it will be back into holiday preparations full force. With less than two weeks until Christmas, I need to get busy on a number of holiday projects. I am grateful for days like these, not only because I got some important work done, but because I’ve felt good doing it. It is almost the end of what has been quite a year; and in spite of the challenges that have come my way, I’m doing pretty well. For that, I am truly thankful.
© M. T. Chamblee, 2011
